Friday, 8 April 2011

Just time for a quick update this week, I have a new painted Odin for you and an early stage of the Avalanche sculpt.

Have a great weekend everyone, and if you're heading to Kapow Comic Con, drop by the Comic Book Alliance booth as former CMFC editor Alan Cowsill should be making an appearance. Alan is currently editing a charity book to raise funds for disaster victims across the world.

Friday, 1 April 2011

Q: What reference are you using for Odin's colour, because everything I have seen he is more gold than blue.

A: Please see below for that answer.

Q: Question, any chance of a Warriors Three Triple Special

A: Highly unlikely considering the problems we’ve had with the double packs.

Q: (i) is Eaglemoss considering the cancellation of our collection?

A: Eaglemoss always states the current end point of a collection and then considers giving the series extensions. At this point it looks promising for another Marvel extension.

Q: (ii) if not, when can we expect the next extension to be confirmed?

A: Soon hopefully, it’s not up to me but those higher up than myself, I’ll let you know, when I know.

Q: (iii) assuming an extension is green-lit, can you persuade the powers to give the go-ahead to another 50 or 60 issues, rather than a measly 20 issues?

A: Unfortunately not. All our collections work on a 20-issue extension; this is how we cost our projects.

Q: can we marvel collectors get any surprises like a sub set or some other kind of marvel related collection in the near future?

A: At the moment we are not planning any more subsets, DC or Marvel. This could quickly change though. My personal opinion is that we should not produce too many subsets at the same time otherwise we may quickly find collectors buying none.

Q: Are you considering doing any other figurine collections in the near future? some interesting ideas have been listed on this blog by fans / collectors in the past and present. tell us what you think rich , and are any of them achievable ?

A: We’re always considering other figurine collections – after all, we produced LOTR and tried a New Line Horror collection. I love the ideas that you guys have, they are very similar to the ones we’ve talked about in the office. Personally I’d love Street Fighter, Doctor Who, Star Trek, 2000AD, Hellboy, Sandman, the list goes on, I’m a big geek.

Q: are we going to get anymore specials this year ? are we going to get anymore double packs ? they seem to be very popular in demand , especially northstar and aurora.

A: Our specials this year are Blob, Sauron, Odin, TBC, and hopefully we’ll be able to put some more out. Double packs are not out of the question and I really want TBC to become Northstar and Aurora. But even if this happens it doesn’t guarantee we’ll do anymore double packs.

Q: would you consider producing a few triple pack specials to complete teams ?

A: Highly unlikely.

Q: The only question I ask at the moment is can we pretty pretty please see a sneak peak of a painted Blackheart soon please Rich?

A: Yep, here it is:

Q: Have you a personal favourite sculpt? Ages ago you said you liked Gladiator but with so many amazing sculpts like Spiral, Cannonball and Blob have your favourites changed?

A: It’s a little unfair for me to call favourites, as I work with all the sculptors on this project and appreciate all their work. However, I have a soft spot for Blink, as she was my personal choice for the collection.

Q: Have you considered slipping generic units into the collection. Grunts like AIM agents, Hydra agents, Hellfire Club drones and Hand Assassins are just as important as individual villains

A: We have but I’m not convinced this is what the majority of collectors want. I’m sure this has been debated before but let me know how you feel about generics in the comments section.

Q: what's the prognosis on two packs in general? We the collectors think they're a fine idea and want Colleen & Misty Knight, Cypher & Warlock, Darkstar & Vanguard among others to make the collection - what can we do as collectors to convince the bean counters it's a viable idea?

A: Simple answer to this is that they are something I like but are not that easy to implement. Please try to understand that since the collection started our costs have gone up and this makes it difficult to ship two figurines in one special. Remember double the figures is double the costs of sculpting, tooling, painting etc… It is a fine balance as not everyone that collects the regular issues buys the special issues.

Q: Hopefully sales of the CMFC continue to be strong and the announcement is imminent. Has the use of resin actually had any impact on your bottom line? Has it increased the viability of the collection continuing?

A: As mentioned in the previous answer, costs have gone up but the collection has stayed at £5.99 for 6 years so you can imagine the ‘bottom line’ has decreased. The most important thing though is to keep fans like yourself on the series.

Q: If there is an extension, will we see another contest to choose the final character of the extension? While the final choices always inspire debate - it is still very exciting and I'm always stoked for the winner! Q: Would you ever consider a contest for a Special Slot? There are SO many incredible special sized characters out there - it would be awesome to choose who might come next!

A: I like the idea of the competition so would choose to do it again for an extension but not for a special I’m afraid.

Q: Is there a chance we will see some of Marvel's more esoteric creations in the next extension? Rawhide Kid, Two Gun Kid, Night Nurse, Werewolf by Night, Squirrel Girl, Killraven or Howard the Duck? Or will we be sticking to the more mainstream super-powered community?

A: All are welcome in my eyes but really I think it’s up to you guys and there is some strong debate on these characters – especially the Duck.

Q: I look forward to seeing it (Odin) as an exclusive preview at the Kapow Comic Con in April. Which is kind of my question too, will you be there?

A: I will be at Kapow but I don’t think Eaglemoss will be doing a stand so if a preview of Odin is there, it will be on a Diamond Previews stand.

Q: It seems like a gamble to release a huge resin/lead dog, but can we please get confirmation on Lockjaw.

A: Not ruling him out but he’s not planned for this year.

Q: What are your thoughts on classic characters versus popular modern characters? I ask because we don't see a lot of modern characters, but some like the Hood or Wiccan are highly recognizable to any Marvel fan and I think should have a place. Is it more of a gamble with newer characters?

A: As you all know from the debate here and on the messageboards, there’s a mix of collectors, so I think it is important to make sure we cover all the bases and have a good mix of both.

General Blurp about other Collections:

I’ve seen some of the comments about new collections and thought it best to make a quick comment. I think the fact that we are in a position to offer more DC and Marvel products is great, and if we don’t work on these projects one of our competitors will and personally I think our collections are of higher quality to some others I’ve seen.

About Me

Dan Rachael (Art Editor, previous credits BBC Children's Magazines and Marvel UK) has recently inherited the blog from Richard Jackson who has moved on to bigger and better things (not in our opinion!). Dan has been tasked with navigating the starship Excelsior (CMFC)! to boldly go where no man or beast has gone before (well, at least up to issue 200). Beam me up Kirby!